+++ Praeteritis Historiam Belli +++

[Grand Master Belial]

Belial stood stock still as he watched the aspirants training below. They were still new and sloppy compared to those serving under his command. But his thoughts were turned inward to the recent events over Fenris. With his armor being repaired, several fresh scars were visible on his exposed arms.

The quiet whirring of servos announced the arrival of a Chaplain overseeing the training of the Tenth Company. With helmet in hand and his hood pulled up, his identity was safe from the Aspirants. “A bitter campaign is being fought behind those eyes and you are not alone. Many of the Circle are also on a similar campaign.”

“How did we not see? How were we blinded to the enemy right in front of us? A Knight of Titan and the leader of the Wolves were not swayed but so many of us were.”

“They had knowledge that we did not possess.”

“Then perhaps it is time to fill in the blanks. It is time to send out envoys to the Legio B&C.”

“It will be done.”

The Inner Circle presents:

Praeteritis Historiam Belli

INTRODUCTION:

The Praeteritis Historiam Belli is replacing the Legends of the Angels and is a Forum Wide Event aimed at participants creating unique stories about a character, squad or Legion. This even includes the recently added Xenos sections of the community.

HOW TO ENTER:

1. Make an oath in this thread in the following manner:

I, <<your name>>, make this oath of moment to submit a completed story about <<insert character or squad here>>.

2. Write your story and submit it in the Fan Fiction Subforum with a link posted in this thread before Midnight of February 6, 2018.

ENTRY CRITERIA:

1 The story should have a minimum 200 words and a maximum of 5,000 words. Spell-check and grammar-check are highly encouraged and recommended.

2 Optional: Include artwork or photos of scenes from your battles using your painted minis.

3 Optional: Include characters or squads that were a part of a prior Painting Competition or the Brotherhood of Angels Competition or MAY be a part of a future Competition.

Possible Story Ideas

• A narrative of a squad or individual’s performance in battle (from one of your games).

• A story taking place in the time of Horus Heresy, possibly a link to the BL books.

• Fleshing out a story in the History of your group

• A story about one of the Heroes

The Shadow Guard’s simple steps to Fan Fiction:

• Pick a model in your army, it doesn't have to be the commander nor your favourite model. It may be even a lowly cultist or a Aspiring Champion.

• Think of a game you played where this particular model did very well. Eg: A Havoc who took out three tanks? A Plague Marine who did the enemy commander in? An Obiterator who led an amazing charge... you get the idea….

• Write down how the battle took place building around the model in question.

• Then go back and add some information about the early years and then follow up with the aftermath.

• Keep reading it again and again and you will find that you can add additional details to flesh things out and voila!!

Food for thought provided by the Liber Astartes Forum

Thought Experiments

1 A Narrative Shift

2 A Hero's Fall

3 A Progenitor's Judgement

4 The Final Days

5 A Breaking Point

6 A Red Alliance

7 A Bond Of Blood

8 A Derivative Original

9 An Unshaken Faith

10 A House Divided

11 A World Burns

12 Of Different Blood

13 A Different Time

14 An Unexpected Battlefield

15 A Sudden Change

16 Where Were You

17 Re-Evaluating Interests

18 A Galaxy of Possibilities

19 New Blood

20 Up to Chance

OATH BEARERS

1. ​Res Ipsa Loquitur - Leonid Aleksandrovich 'Bolshoyestvol' Komarov - Story
2. Swarmlord Unleashed - former Dusk Raiders 18th Assault Company with their Primaris descendants.
3. Warpmiss - the meeting of the Iron Warriors warband, the Iron Flesh, with the Death Guard warband, the Blighted Children.

Edited February 23, 2018 by Grand Master Belial

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

I, Res Ipsa Loquitur, make this oath of moment to submit a completed story about Leonid Aleksandrovich 'Bolshoyestvol' Komarov, a reluctantly renegade planetary defence trooper.

Edited November 13, 2017 by Res Ipsa Loquitur

[Grand Master Belial]

OATHBEARERS as of December 5, 2017

 

Adeptus Astartes

1. Iron Father Ferrum - Iron Captain Tyrrod Tekton
2. Damo1701 - Strike Force Korvyn, of the Raven Guard (M31)
3. HCMistborn - Captain Einer Blackmane and Knight Squad Avalon
4. Claws and Effect - Fire Raptor called Wraithwind of the Raven Guard Chapter

 

Agents of the Imperium

1. Arkhan - Lord Inquisitor Arkhan of the Ordo Xenos

 

Chaos Space Marines 

1. Res Ipsa Loquitur - Leonid Aleksandrovich 'Bolshoyestvol' Komarov

 

Dark Angels

1. Brother Sergeant Luther - First Consecrators

[Cryptix]

I, Swarmlord Unleashed, make this oath of moment to submit a completed story about the clash of the former Dusk Raiders 18th Assault Company with their Primaris descendants.

[Warpmiss]

I, Warpmiss, make this oath of moment to submit a completed story about the meeting of the Iron Warriors warband, the Iron Flesh, with the Death Guard warband, the Blighted Children.

 

This is exactly the kind of event I needed to finally force myself to work on the fluff of my Iron Warriors and Death Guard warbands. I've already fleshed out so many details from just thinking about how to structure this so, even if I weren't able to complete the event, I already have to thank you, Grand Master Belial, for that. ;)

 

 I have a question, though. Can I make a small signature banner for myself about this? We've had banners for other events but not for this one so I rather see in my signature a reminder of how long I have to complete this.   

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

I, Res Ipsa Loquitur, make this oath of moment to submit a completed story about Leonid Aleksandrovich 'Bolshoyestvol' Komarov, a reluctantly renegade planetary defence trooper.

 

Big Iron

 

Paradise Lost – Part I.

 

Aleksandr Nikolayevich Komarov marched out of Kotlin to defend the Imperial order he believed passionately in and to liberate his birthplace from Heretics. He fought bravely in numerous actions and was the recipient of several field promotions, rising to KomBat within six months of war breaking out. He died unregarded in the mud; half of his skull blown away by an errant artillery shell fired by his comrades as he and his battalion assaulted a Heretic bunker. 

 

The Kommisars called it 'collateral damage'.

 

She read the line again, quite unable to believe that such a thing had been committed to print in the first place. The words didn't swim, didn't change. “The famous man looked at the red cup” they read. She laughed to herself, rested the slate on her rounded stomach and wondered about a society that could venerate such rubbish. She thought of Sanya, miles away fighting for his beliefs and again prayed that the Emperor would see him well. He would be surprised in the change in her since he left; she had written but did not know whether he had received her letters. All was well, said the wire. The Heretics had been pushed back to the outskirts by heavy Imperial shelling and minimal losses had been sustained. The war would be over in weeks. Sanya would return to the factory, they would marry and together they would embark on this new chapter of life. 

 

The months passed, and Sanya did not return. A year and Sanya did not return, did not yet know about the boy so far as she knew. Then, a letter. She read 'missing in action, presumed deceased' and wept. Eventually, the Heretics were defeated and their surviving leaders were summarily executed in Kotlin's Main Square. Sanya did not return.

 

Seven years went by and the boy's grandfather said it was time. He lived in a brutal and lawless world and he had to know how to fight or he would be finished before he even got going. She didn't – couldn't – disagree. It was obvious that Kronstaat IV had never really recovered from the Marzanna Uprising, as it became known. Central government had not been able to fully reassert control, crime was rife and you could not rely on the Arbites who were more concerned with their own prestige and power than maintaining order. Reluctantly, she agreed and the boy was given his father's stub gun, a relic of a man who went to war and never came home. The boy was not large and was not well nourished and the pistol hung prominent and ostentatious on his hip.  

 

Between the Wars – Part II.

 

Leonid Aleksandrovich Komarov eyed him across the room saw him spit, saw him take a gulp of his zydrate, saw him toss a few creds on the bar and stand up, swaying slightly. He watched him leave, followed him across the square, across the market, down a dark laneway and shot him in the back of the head. He watched him crumple, dropped the pistol to the floor and then faded away into the cold night. 

 

It was his fifteenth birthday.

 

The situation on Kronstaat IV did not improve. New heretical blood cults were being uncovered on an almost monthly basis across the planet. Resistance to Imperial rule intensified and was allegedly crushed in joint actions between the pink-robed Arbites and the Planetary Defence Force that made lots of noise and caused colossal destruction but which in reality seemed to achieve little. 

 

It had been immediately apparent that dropping the pistol at the scene had been his biggest mistake. Being seen tailing the victim out of a drinking hole and across three busy city blocks had done him no favours, either. Shooting his mother's boyfriend couldn't have been more obvious in the circumstances, said others. Still though, the presence of a firearm that distinctive, that jealously guarded and that well-known was fatal to any presumption of innocence in the public mind. Ballistic testing confirmed what everyone already knew. Gunshot residue testing nailed the coffin firmly shut. It was an open and shut case and so the public advokat did the best she could, which is how Leonid Aleksandrovich had ended up spending the last five years serving in the 6th Battalion, 42nd Regiment of the Kronstaat IV Planetary Defence Force. It was, without question, also how he had ended up in his current predicament; a traitor flanked by giants clad in purple. 

 

The End – Part III.

 

KomBat Petrichenko surveyed his battalion, sighed noisily, then told them that they had been double-crossed and would certainly die within days. Of course, there were protestations. It couldn't possibly be true, all was proceeding according to the plan and Kronstaat IV's future would be secured within weeks. Steely determination was all that was required; by the people for the people. Petrichenko patiently laid out everything he knew. There was no denying it; they had been duped. They had been used as pawns in a game they couldn't even suspect existed and they had been sold at a great loss. 

 

They were Heretics. The Marzanna Uprising had been successful after all and they had fought for it.

 

Komarov gripped his lasgun tightly, shaking ever so slightly, awaiting the next lot of blood-cultists and whatever those ...things... had been. He stole a glance to his right at Zaitsev, who was mumbling verses from the Infantryman's Primer under his breath and again wondered how it had come to this. He had not seen Soshnikov for days. He hoped he had deserted. Poor Soshnikov, he had known. Had tried to warn them and had been dismissed. A movement ahead caught his eye. A flash of red among the piles of rubble, slag and corpses that used to be Kotlin. Before he could react, one of the silent giants despatched the... thing... with a shot to the... well, where its head should have been, the sudden crack of gunfire making him start.

 

He unclenched and waited for the next wave. He wouldn't survive much longer; he knew that. Didn't want to, really. Not now. He couldn't have known. They couldn't have known. 

 

A signal chimed down the line. Ladders were placed. If he had to do it all over, he'd shoot that abusive son of a bitch again. No question. A second signal chimed and over they went, into darkness.

Edited January 14, 2018 by Res Ipsa Loquitur

[Warpmiss]

Well, it's absolutely imposible that I have a completed story by tomorrow night. At least not one that covers what I wanted to write anyway. I've reworked the entire thing a couple of times from scratch and I'm still not happy with how anything is coming out. So, I have failed this time. But I'll like to pick this up again for Camp NaNoWriMo in April or July.